Comments

The Chargers problems are strange. I might have expected a drop-off in the kick coverage because Osgood left, but they've actually been awful in four separate areas:

1) Blocking on punts. I don't understand this one. How does your scheme/personnel change so much that you can't block the guys in front of you? All three blocked punts were caused by guys running free up the middle, not coming from the edges.

2) Long snapping. With long-time Charger David Binn on IR, the Chargers have been bringing in free agents off the street. The first two have joined Binn on IR, so the Chargers are now on their 4th long snapper of the season.

3) Kick returns. Sproles has looked incompetent in returning both kick-offs and punts. This isn't anything new either, since he didn't do much last year either. The Chargers need to replace him with Goodman on kicks and Crayton on punts.

4) Kick coverage. Missed tackles and not staying in lanes. Who would have guess that Kassim Osgood would be more valuable to the 2010 Chargers than Vincent Jackson?

I totally agree, but I think 1 and 2 are closely related. The blocked punt against Jax was a bad snap that Scifres took too long to haul in. But the two against Oakland, it's less clear. The Raiders clearly saw a mismatch opportunity with Applewhite, which makes sense. The first time, he got steamrolled. The second time, he got steamrolled, after Hester committed himself elsewhere.

You can't blame it on fatigue. The errors have mostly happened at the beginning of the game and just after halftime. You also can't blame it on a lack of focus. Spillman was playing for his job, and lost it. Applewhite and Hester are both starters, playing ST in order to help the new guys along. Perhaps Richard Goodman and his speedy legs will help with punt coverage and kickoff returns. Perhaps some of the schematic problems can be coached out.

Here's an interesting question: is there any relationship between the decline in the Chargers' coverage and the banning of 4-man blocking sleds? Denver used to do a lot of those, and last year, the first year without them, they ran two back at San Diego.

Long snapping. With long-time Charger David Binn on IR, the Chargers have been bringing in free agents off the street. The first two have joined Binn on IR, so the Chargers are now on their 4th long snapper of the season.

The article doesn't mention the hectic turnover at Long Snapper. I'm not sure how much of an impact that's had, but we're now on our fifth long snapper of the season, after having David Binn start every game since the mid 90s.

You also missed an excellent opportunity for an STD joke (David Binn dated Pamela Anderson for a few years. Fill in the rest).